LEO effects on conventional and unconventional solar cell cover materials

Author

Stella, Paul M.

Author_Institution

Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA

fYear

1991

fDate

7-11 Oct 1991

Firstpage

1416

Abstract

In 1984, the LDEF (Long Duration Exposure Facility) was placed in LEO (low Earth orbit) for a mission planned to last approximately one year. The effects of the LDEF mission environment (micrometeorite/debris impacts, atomic, atomic oxygen, UV, and particulate radiation) on the samples are described. The relative importance of these interactions is highly dependent on orbital altitude. There is no evidence that the impacts with the test samples (including solar cells) caused any electrical degradation. Evidence from a number of LDEF experiments suggests that the majority of the impacts observed on this experiment were of space debris, rather than micrometeorite origin

Keywords

aerospace testing; semiconductor device testing; solar cells; space vehicle power plants; LDEF; LEO; Long Duration Exposure Facility; aerospace testing; artificial satellites; cover materials; electrical degradation; low Earth orbit; mission environment; solar cell; space power; Aerospace materials; Bonding; Cerium; Low earth orbit satellites; Photovoltaic cells; Rough surfaces; Sheet materials; Silver; Surface roughness; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 1991., Conference Record of the Twenty Second IEEE

Conference_Location

Las Vegas, NV

Print_ISBN

0-87942-636-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PVSC.1991.169439

Filename

169439